August 28 Update from the ScanningEriePA Shack

August 28, 2014

I hope all my site readers are enjoying the last fleeting days of summer in the Lake Erie region. I apologize for the lack of updates recently; there hasn’t been anything too crazy going on in local scanner news, to my knowledge. I do my best to look for important happenings, updates, and news to share with you, but can’t always put in as much time as I would like. If any of you ever have any news you become aware of, you can always share it with me here on the site via comment, and I can post it for the whole community to see and learn from. The more of us with ears out on the local happenings, the better.

I have been having a fairly busy but very enjoyable summer. The highlight was that we took a one and a half week vacation by car to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming earlier this month. I used the state by state ham radio repeater listings from Repeaterbook, found athttp://www.repeaterbook.com,
and was quite pleased that 90 percent of the repeaters and PL’s they listed were correct. That may be a good idea for you to do some investigating if you plan on traveling with your ham radio.

Speaking of ham radio, I plan to try to upgrade my license from Technician class to General in a little over a month, at the October meeting of the Union City Wireless Assoc. I’m thrilled to have that opportunity, and look forward to hopefully passing and joining the ranks of the generals on the air. With all this time in the car, I’ve been studying a lot, and I think I’m going to be about as ready as I’ll ever get.

There haven’t been many site updates lately. I did some tweaking on the “Radio Codes and Lingo” page to keep current with outdated links and my know of codes used in the area. I also changed the shack information page a little to reflect current equipment and uses. Otherwise all content on the site, to my knowledge, remains updated and current.

Now is the time for getting in some last moments of summertime monitoring on the scanner. The marine bands will be going very quiet before too much longer with the end of pleasure boating season; local police activity remains very hot. Erie has been hopping of late, as they have been for much of the summer, and is always entertaining to listen to. The Chautauqua County sheriff has also been a bit busier, including an auto pursuit yesterday morning. (Unfortunately, I didn’t hear the beginning or reason of the pursuit, and it went out of range before it ended.) Scanner activity is likely to be bustling across the country as well; don’t forget you can always browse the extensive live feed listings on RadioReference for free, anytime, as well as all the other great resources they have for radio enthusiasts. (I like the forums area as well, as with a free membership you can gain access to advice and knowledge from hobbyists locally and abroad.)http://www.radioreference.com

Well, that’s about it from the shack for now. I will continue to scan both the airwaves and the news sources for any news of interest to the local community to share with you. As noted previously, if you become aware of anything, or otherwise have any questions or comments to share, feel free to contact me. I continue to monitor site activity, even if I haven’t posted for a while.